


You fooled me

by iriswesttt



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-22 20:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6093733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iriswesttt/pseuds/iriswesttt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iris and Barry’s high school reunion</p>
            </blockquote>





	You fooled me

“Iris! We are going to be late!”

Barry informed her from their living room. He had just caught a meta-human who could turn himself, and whatever object he had a hold on, into liquid, and Barry was still buzzing from the adrenaline running around his veins and there was way too much energy in his body, and waiting for her to finish her make up was leaving him impatient.

He peaked into their bed room to see Iris sitting on her vanity, applying lipstick, a glossy berry-pink, and studying her reflexion, she turned to face him when she spotted Barry through the mirror and he took it as an invitation, walking towards her while she asked;

“And whose fault is that?”

“I’m ready there’s 30 minutes.”

“Well, it’s not my fault I couldn’t concentrate in anything else while you were in danger. Not everyone has super speed, you know, that’s why it’s called super.”

He tried pouting at her but the smirk, forming on his lips against his will, stopped him from it, so he just gave into the smile instead. She beamed back at him and turned to the mirror once again and he sat on their bed watching her, it beat fumbling around the kitchen trying to find something (unnecessary after the meal he just had) to eat. She was wearing a green dress, with an open back, that seemed to shine against her skin and her dark hair, combed back and held in place by a black ribbon fell loose around the cut, dancing on her exposed skin and he enjoyed the view as something warm spread around his insides while watching her in silence, appreciating the little ways she moved her face, analysing the effect of the light on her glowing cheek bones, painting her eyebrows and weighting whether or not she needed more blush. Sometimes he could still be surprised by how beautiful she was, either all dolled up like she was now or just waking up in the morning, whenever he actually stopped to pay attention it never failed to fill him with the notion till there was no room for anything else, but somehow, sometimes, it crept up to him unexpectedly.

It was their 10th year high school reunion they were a little late for, and it wasn’t like he relished on the prospect of seeing all the bullies and snobs they went to high school with, but Iris wanted to go so he obliged, he always did, to her anyway. Just as he mulled over that she seemingly read his mind, asking; 

“Since when do you care anyway? You didn’t even want to go to this reunion in the first place.”

He lay down on their bed, around her previously discarded clothes, taking pleasure on the fact that their room smelled softly like her party perfume, the same perfume she wore on their wedding day, and that never failed to give him the jitters. Staring at the ceiling, remembering of it, the taste of her lipstick that day, and how her necklace sat on her skin above her dress’ low cut cleavage, he tried to justify himself;  _I **don’t** care, I’m just bored, _but his heart wasn’t in it, he wasn’t bored anymore, he was just enjoying her presence and dwelling on how there, in their room, doing absolutely nothing, he would have more fun than at the party.

He sat up again when he listened to her heels, clicking on the wood floor, signalling her moving towards him. She stopped right in front of him and opened his knees bumping hers between his and he placed his hands on her hips, marvelling on the fact that he could, that she would allowed it, that she loved him back.

“I don’t get the fun in seeing all those people again.”

She brushed her fingers through his hair and replied;

“It’s an open bar.”

“I can’t get drunk.”

“No, but I can, not everything is about you”. He kissed the spot on her neck, just bellow her ear and smirked at her fastening pulse. It never ceased to amaze him that he was the one who had this effect on her, but before he could truly enjoy it she pull herself away from him, saying;  

“Now you’ll make us late.”

He raised his eyebrows at her and replied petulantly, crooking his head;

“Yeah, but I’m not bored anymore.”

She pulled him by the hand, hurrying him up, saying he would have to drive the way back cause she was planning on drinking, and yes, they had to take her car, her hair couldn’t handle a run, and in the middle of her mumbling, his silent compliance was completely genuine, maybe this party wouldn’t be so bad (his mantra throughout high school), and if it were he could always whisper on her ears and invite her to find better things to do (a wish that probably occupy about 70% of his brain throughout high school).  


* * *

“Oh my God! Iris! Hi!”

Iris turned around to see Kara Johnson, pregnant, wearing a tacky taffeta silver dress, her blond hair in a soccer mom cut, coming towards her way. Kara was one of the cheerleaders that Iris occasionally hung out with for the three years of school she cheered. Not that she could actually remember having a thing in common with her, but _Oh, high school, a time in life to try to make yourself be something you aren’t_. As if just being a teenager wasn’t already difficult enough. She put a smile on her face and stood up from the tall bench, by the tall, little table, where Barry had left her sitting while he went to the bar to get them drinks.

“Hi, Kara!”

“Girl, you look pretty.”

“Thank you, so do you.” She was surprised by a hug, she doubted Kara missed her that much; “How are you?”

“Pregnant.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed. How far along?”

“19 weeks. It’s my second one. I’ve got Clara home. What about you? Do you have kids?”

She and Barry had been talking about it, he was afraid that his powers would mean a problem for the pregnancy, for the kid, for her. It was just talk though. They were together two years now, and they wanted to get a good five years before any kids anyway, but because of all that the genetics modifications meant they had to plan it through, be extra careful to not have any accidents. Caitlin was trying to help, studying the possibilities, but kids were still in the future. In the deep unknown scary future, no matter how many hints her dad would drop at them. 

Sometimes she thought she could do without kids, if they never manage it, things were pretty good the way they were, they also talked briefly about adopting. She had a feeling Barry, not having his mom and dad growing up, and frequently squirming around to fit on their family (as much as for her he had been what had made them a family again) would want kids some way or another, as long as there were kids, their kids, their family, but a selfish part of her wanted a child that would look like the two of them, a little mini-Bear with her eyes or a mini-Iris with his or something like that, even if she would feel egoistic for thinking like that.

“No, no kids”, she said uncomfortably, mechanically brushing the, already behind her ear hair, behind her ear. Something else called Kara’s attention before she could request Iris to dwell on the lack of heirs;

“You have a big rock on your finger though.”

“Oh, yeah, family heirloom.”

It wasn’t a rock though. It was actually a pearl ring, with two diamonds, one in each side, smaller than the pearl. It had been his mom’s engagement ring and Henry had recounted to her once, that he picked a pearl ring because when he first started dating Nora she had told him that the cultural importance of diamond’s ring had been a marketing manoeuvre made by imperialist companies that explored Indian diamond mines. And because she had always seemed to like pearls, of course. 

Barry had the ring since his mom died and Henry never did want it back. After they were married Barry confessed he had almost given her the ring about a thousand times, not proposing, but because he said he could never imagine giving it to anyone else.

When they got married, secretly, a week and a half after their first date (it had been a spur of the moment thing: she was doing some legal research for an article she was writing and had discovered that it was possible to have a licence issued and get married on the same day in Central City, all you needed was to fill some forms and wait in line at the city hall), no one knew they were together yet, they didn’t have their actual wedding bands, so he gave her his mom’s ring and she wore it on her middle finger for about two months, until they sat Joe and Henry down to break the news. Henry said he had figured it out the second he spotted the ring though, but he told them he wasn’t 100% sure because _one could never really know with the two of you_.

“Your mom’s?”, Kara asked.

“No, his mom’s.”

She absently turned towards the bar searching for Barry. She wanted to hold the conversation long enough so he could see Kara’s face too. She had never told Barry but in their senior year, a Tuesday afternoon close to graduation, when she was on one of the bathroom stools, changing into her cheering outfit, she overheard Kara having a conversation with one of the other girls, saying she didn’t understand how Iris could be friends with Barry, how they seemed to have nothing in common and how he was boring and a nerd and Iris seemed to hang out with him out of pit. She had never hung out with Kara again after that, and she had missed practice that day, instead she drove home earlier and spend about two hours (until she had to go back to school to pick Barry up from his AP Chemistry class) crying. It was already so difficult for her to understand what exactly was that she felt for Barry and after hearing that she worried he would have the same questions Kara seemed to have, that he didn’t understood why she loved him, regardless of how, and she worried other people would say that sort of thing to his face.  

He never seemed to doubt her love though. And as different as they were in some aspects it wasn’t the important stuff. People never seem to get that they were similar, not because they both liked the same things or shared a profession, they were similar because they had the same principals, they believed and fought for the same morals, they laughed about the same things, they believed on each other more than on anyone else and loved each other more than it seemed possible to fit inside of a person, so even though he would probably miss the complete meaning that Kara’s reaction would have for her she still wanted him to see it.

“So, do I get to meet the husband? I mean, mine didn’t come, Paul is a surgeon, he’s on call today, is yours here?” 

“Oh, yeah, I mean, he’s at the bar getting us drinks.”

She sighed in relief when she saw him walking towards her, carrying what seemed to be two champagne glasses in his hands, and she unconsciously hold her breath as Kara went on and on about how difficult it was to deal with a two year old. Barry approached her absently, seemingly missing she was talking to someone, handling her her glass and saying;

“They don’t have any options of white wine, except for the sparkling ones, so I got us some prosecco.”

His now free hand went straight around her hip, bringing her closer and he placed a little kiss on her temple, turning to acknowledge Kara afterwards;

“Hello, Kara.”

Kara froze open-mouthed, and Iris was a bit disappointed that it was going to be a silent reaction, she needed a moment to be able to close her lips back together and ask;

“Are you fucking me? Allen is your husband?”

“Yep”, Iris responded, popping the  _P_  more than strictly necessary. 

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I wanted Barry to see your face too.”

“Damn! Now I own like, four people, 300 bucks each.”

And she proceeded to explain how Becky Cooper, Liam Evans, Dave Stein and Kate Green had taken a pool about how people would be now and they all bet against her that Iris and Barry would be married to each other, so now she owned them for it; “I never thought you liked him back but everybody else did”, she finished.

“You guys knew I liked Iris?”, Barry questioned with a disgusted face and Iris wasn’t sure if it was him disapproving the pool, the fact that everyone in high school knew he was in love with her and he was finding that a tad humiliating, or a combination of both. Probably the later.

“Oh yeah, everybody knew that.”

They didn’t had a chance to really finish the conversation though, as John Lucas passed by them, calling Kara, who said she would “catch up with them later”, and Iris had never been more thankful for seeing John Lucas, for she could turn to Barry and tease him freely;

“I wish you could see your face right now.”

“They all knew I liked you?”

“Aw, Bear. You fooled me.”

“Is that supposed to be consolation?”, he pouted, and she smiled big at him, nuzzling on his neck she whispered on his ear;

“I loved you too. I didn’t know how I loved you, but I did love you anyway.”

He pulled her closer against him and kissed her, probably a bit inappropriately for public consumption, but she didn’t find it in her to care, entranced by the smell of his hair product and his aftershave, of Barry. 

“Becky Cooper bet we would be together”, she told him, pulling his bottom lip. He burst out laughing, like that was some kind of joke she was missing and then said to her;

“You are such a territorial person.”

But he was the one with both of his hands on the small of her back, keeping her plastered to him by the hips, she feigned offence, retorting;

“What? I am not! She was a nightmare of a high school girlfriend, you can’t deny that.”

He giggled, focusing on her, and changing the subject;

“You know, there’s something I’ve really wanted to try in high school.” And she noticed his eyes going darker, figuring he was about to propose something a little indecent.

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“Fucking on the girl’s bathroom.”

“I’m way ahead of you”, she let him know, “I’ve already located the lady’s room in most pristine condition.”

He laughed again, shaking his head, but he offered no resistance to her pull, following her willingly, after downing the rest of his prosecco and grabbing her her glass from the table.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr iriswestthings


End file.
